By Ben Hobson
As my first professional conference in this field I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having but recently adopted my coverage analysis position, I found “The Buck Stops Here…Or Does It?” as the most informative session so far. It’s good to hear that there are so many grey areas as being the sole contributor to your organization, you often feel if there is no black and white answer you have somehow missed something. Diane’s presentation and the session Q&A really brought some good points to light and intuitive ways to deal with conditional language in routine costs. I find the consensus is such, even though some grey items (like conditional payment of routine visit co-payments/deductibles/andthesuch are widely regarded as “legal”, most institutions do prohibit such terms to avoid possible complications and to prevent complication in other areas such as ICF drafting and billing/Coordinator charge routing compliance. It’s refreshing to get so many points of views on how to address each specific issue.
With seminars focusing on contractual terms, coverage analysis, and proposed regulation changes, this conference fits well with multi-faceted positions such as mine.